Since it is the nature of people to understand stories more easily
than most anything else, I will tell one. Let's call it a fairytale.

Once upon a time, not so long ago and not so far away, there was a
large, prosperous village than unfortunately had an idiot for a king.
Unfortunately, his advisors were idiots, too.

Down the road a bit was another village, one that was tiny and poor
and not a threat at all to our large, prosperous village. Somehow, the
Idiot King, along with his idiot advisors, got it in their heads the
poor, tiny village had a insane homicidal maniac for a king. Along
with that, many of the people in the village were also supposed to be
insane homicidal maniacs.

"They are evil and are going to attack us for our goodness," exclaimed
the Idiot King. "We have to attack them first in self-defense. How do
we get the public to march off to war?"

"We will use propaganda," said one of his idiot advisors. "The
techniques have been around for a long time and even an idiot could
use them."

"Really?" asked the Idiot King, who was generally quite incurious
about most everything. "Then it should be easy for us."

"There are four main techniques for successful propaganda," his
advisor explained. "First, we have to stress emotion over logic, but
convince people they are being logical."

"Works for me," said the Idiot King.

"Then," the advisor continued, "we have to demonize the enemy, but
convince people the enemy really is evil."

"That's because they are!" frowned the Idiot King.

"Third," said the advisor, "tell people that by destroying the enemy
the world will be safer, and will lead to a better world for us and
them."

"It certainly will!" exclaimed the Idiot King joyfully.

"Fourth," the advisor continued, "idealize yourself, your country,
your government, your military. By idealizing yourself and devaluing
the enemy they can be transformed into evil monsters 'attacking us for
our goodness.'"

"The things you can learn just by listening," the Idiot King said
admiringly.

So the Idiot King and his idiot advisors told the people of the
village (many of whom were idiots themselves) that the tiny poor
village down the road was inhabited by monsters!! Evil, insane
homicidal monsters who would go to any extreme to attack our large
prosperous village and destroy it.

So of course many of the people of our large prosperous village
grabbed their pitchforks and clubs and axes and marched down the road,
attacked the poor tiny village, killed the King and many of the
inhabitants.

Many of the inhabitants of the poor tiny village fled into woods, and
when they caught one of the invaders of their village they killed him.

"This is really surprising," commented the Idiot King, puzzled. "I
thought they would welcome us as liberators, throwing flowers at us
and maybe even the women showing us their boobs."

"You'd think so," said his advisors, just as puzzled.

One of the inhabitants of our large prosperous village was a
four-year-child who had no home so he slept with the village dogs to
keep warm. Though this child was poor and homeless, an idiot this
child was not.

"If the Idiot King has asked me," the child told his dogs, who
listened attentively, "I could have told him his attack wouldn't work.
For one thing, you can conquer a country on horseback, but you have to
dismount to rule."

His dogs nodded their approval.

"If people weren't sleep-walkers," the child said to the dogs, who
looked impressed, "they'd never believe anything their government
says."

"Uh huh," chorused the dogs.

The child thought for a while, then said, "If people want to prevent
being brainwashed and falling for propaganda, perhaps they should use
logic over hysterical emotion. Perhaps knowing some logical fallacies
might help."

"Post hoc, ergo propter hoc," said one of the dogs.

"'Because of this, therefore that'," said the child. "Just because
something precedes something doesn't mean it causes it. You must
analyze the situation and discover what the true causes are."

"Yep," commented a dog.

"Perhaps," the child said pensively, "we should never allow ourselves
to demonize anyone. There is no one in the world who is pure evil or
pure evil."

The dogs smirked, knowing they were better than humans in that way.

"And never believe in Utopia," the child said thoughtfully. "It's
always based on the belief in getting rid of those evil people. 'The
butcher is held in great esteem in Harmony,' I read somewhere."

The dogs listened in awe.

"Never idealize your government, your country, or your military,"
pondered the child. "All such idealizations are hubris, and hubris is
always followed by nemesisdestruction."

"Pride goes before destruction," one of the dogs added. "And a haughty
spirit before a fall. That's in the Bible somewhere."

"Someday people will smirk at people who in the past believed in
witches, monsters, dragons, and so on," the child finished. "But
they'll be no different than we are, because, if brainwashing and
propaganda can be defined in one sentence, it's convincing people
monsters are attacking our village, so we have to kill them."

"You're pretty smart for a human," one dog said.

"Like anyone's going to listen to a four-year-old child," the child
observed.